How Do You Justify a New Staff Position?
How can you make the argument that adding more people to your church staff is worth the expense? What are the best tactics to take to convince “The Powers That Be” to hire additional staff?
It’s not enough to simply say work’s not getting done or your ministry isn’t growing as quickly as it could. It’s not enough to talk about how overworked you are, or about how important tasks are falling through the cracks. It’s not even enough to say your ministry isn’t getting the resources it needs.
Personnel Committees want proof. When it comes to getting more human resources for your ministry, you’ve got to speak the language of both ministry and management. Personnel Committees are typically business leaders who are bottom-line people and you need to understand that. Sketching out a problem and declaring your solution to be “hire someone” won’t convince anyone to take action, and may make you sound like a whiner.
You need to make the case that the staffing issue is directly impacting the core mission, vision and strategy of the church, and that your solution will lead to mission-critical initiatives being completed more effectively and efficiently. You must make a “business case” by answering the questions these leaders are asking in their own businesses as they face an economic climate that values “lean and mean.”
Address the following 12 questions in a New Hire Justification Proposal and you are more likely to substantiate the need for a new position in convincing terms and receive the green light to hire more people.
12 Vetting Criteria to Justify a New Staff Position
1.Need – We need a person who can meet this need………Why? How is this need currently being addressed?
2. Growth – How will this position help grow the mission, vision and ministry of our church?
3. Strategic – What strategic initiatives of the church will this position move forward? What specific global church objective or goal will this position help advance?
4. Gaps – If this person were not hired, what would not get done or accomplished? What would be the negative impact?
5. Benefits – What measurable results do we want to achieve from this position? What benefits will the church receive?
6. Volunteers – Can this need be met by a volunteer(s)? If not, why not?
7. Part Time – Can this need be met by a contract or part time employee? If not, why not? If so, what are the projected costs?
8. Outsourcing – Can this need be met by outsourcing? If not, why not? If so, what are the projected costs?
9. Other Staff – Can this need be met by adding it to the job description of a current position? If not, why not? If so, how would this additional responsibility impact their other responsibilities? Could a lesser priority position be eliminated to provide funding for this higher priority position?
10. Training – Can a current staff or volunteer be trained to fill this role? If not, why not? If so, how can this training be achieved?
11. Structure – If approved, where on the staff organization chart will the position fit? Supervisor-number of direct reports? Classification? Compensation? Funding source?
12. Priority – Where does this staff position fit in hiring priority, relative to existing staffing requests in the Multi-Year Staffing Model? What is the ideal timing of this hire?
Posted on March 22, 2016
